i always struggled with dream journals
my dreams have always been extremely vivid, long and difficult to tell apart from reality. no matter how fantastical they get, i've never been able to tell i was in a dream. often times these result in me waking up exhausted, both emotionally and physically. once i awake the reality around me clearly changed from the dream and its easy to tell "oh yeah that was all a dream i guess", but the reality inside me usually takes a bit more time to adjust, sometimes certain feelings will persist for weeks, maybe months on end
it's never just one coherent dream either, but more like multiple (usually around 2 to 5) stitched together. this contributes to my exhaustion in the morning since it'll feel like it has been a few full days in between the time i fell asleep and the time i woke up
for very long i tried to induce lucid dreaming but i was never successful. i did reality checks very frequently for months on end, tried keeping detailed dream journals, tried the full body relaxation thing (trying to trick your brain into thinking you're asleep) but nothing worked. the dream journals were difficult though, primarily because i simply don't have the hour or two in the morning to write it all down in my diary. a lot of times i'll also have difficulty recalling it in ways that make sense or is coherent enough
i really wish i could lucid dream. i still do reality checks, try meditating a while before bed, and will sometimes use my gf as an abridged dream journal, but i've come to terms with the fact that i probably can't. oh well
to actually add to the thread:
one of my more recent dreams was reasonably calm and peaceful compared to the norm. i was in the netherlands (i've never been there irl and i don't know any place there, it was just context information i had in my head at the time that the place i'm in was the the nl, anyway). it was a deep blue night, so peaceful you could almost hear the silence. the whole of the nl was sort of collapsing under this nation wide fire and many people were brought over from other countries (including me)... for some reason? i think maybe it was to help fight the fire, anyway, unimportant. i remember just walking around in the most beautiful sights i've seen. the deep blue night in a small town in bright orange flames. the fires didn't look threatening or dangerous at all, they were more like decorative accents to the oil painting-looking town i was in. incredibly beautiful. it wasn't hot either, it felt like a breezy summer night. next to a building that looked like a broken/burnt down barn there's a group of maybe five people gathered around a small table on the side of the barn. i participate a bit but i can't recall properly what they were talking about. they weren't scared by the looming fires either but i remember they were pretty mocking/demeaning in their attitude. they were pointing at some map and i remember we weren't meant to go to the bottom of the map. i walk away and pick up a bike from the side of the street, and walk with it besides me. the bulk of the dream is just me exploring and walking around next to this bike for hours on end. everything was mesmerisingly beautiful, i can't stress this enough. at some point a guy shows up and he starts following me, walking alongside me. he resembles someone i think i knew, maybe the son of one of mom's friends, but this is just me after the dream speaking, in the dream i didn't recognise him. while walking alongside me he can not stop mocking and berating me, just constantly picking on anything about me or my life, questioning everything i do or did or want to do. very low effort though, like a fifth grader. "you want to do a phd? that is so stupid dude you're so stupid, what do you even do with that? so stupid" type deal. i didn't really pay him any mind and i just kept walking with him as if he was a friend i invited to walk along with me. sometimes i ask him for stuff like "hey you got any water?" and hell pause the berating and just give me some of his water from his backpack like a normal friend would, then keep going as if nothing happened
eventually, after hours of walking i get on the bike and try to ride it. It was very off, the handlebars were bent weirdly and in an awkward position that made it very difficult for me to grip them properly, constantly slipping out of my hand. i can't keep direction properly. it's very difficult to push and keep balance, when i try to pedal it feels like its going nowhere. i struggle with it for a long time but i maybe advance two or three meters in an hour. the guy lingers around me and doesn't stop his berating, now mocking my attempt to ride the bike too. for the longest time i keep trying to ride the bike but it's just impossible. the dream ends and i wake up as i struggle to ride my bike